Written Answers Tuesday 20 October 2009

Scottish Executive

Mental Health

Helen Eadie (Dunfermline East) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what action it has taken to provide inpatient beds for children and adolescents with mental health issues in line with recommendations made in the Child Health Support Group Inpatient Working Group report, Psychiatric Inpatient Services for Children and Young People in Scotland: A Way Forward .

Shona Robison: We are working to implement fully The Mental Health of Children and Young People: A Framework for Promotion, Prevention and Care (Bib. number 38415) by 2015. To support this we have made available £2 million on a recurring basis to accelerate the development of specialist child and adolescent mental health community services to reduce the need for admission to inpatient care.

  For children there are nine beds provided on a national basis at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children (Yorkhill).

  For young people, the recently opened Skye House in the West of Scotland is an indicator of the progress with this agenda, providing 24 beds (an increase from 16). We are also working closely with NHS boards in the north and south east of Scotland. Currently there are 12 beds in Edinburgh and six in Dundee though consideration is being given to increasing this to 12.

  The total potential figure of 48 beds is lower than previously announced but reflects the significant additional investment in intensive community services intended to reduce admissions that take children away from their families.

  We are also investing an additional £6.5 million over the next three years to NHS boards that will significantly increase the number of psychologists working in specialist child and adolescent mental health services. These additional psychologists will be able to offer direct services and to support others in the work that they do with children and young people with mental health problems.